Mitt Romney was ready for it, THE question. For months now, those who chronicle politics have been clamoring for IT to be asked.

Until 1978, the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an officially racist organization. Mitt Romney was an adult in 1978. We need to know how he justified this to himself, and we need to hear his self-criticism, if he should chance to have one.

The Book of Mormon, when it is not “chloroform in print” as Mark Twain unkindly phrased it, is full of vicious ingenuity. From it you can learn of the ancient battle of Cumorah, which occurred at a site conveniently near Joseph Smith’s home in upstate New York. In this legendary engagement, the Nephites, described as fair-skinned and “handsome,” fought against the outcast Lamanites, whose punishment for turning away from God was to be afflicted with dark skin. Later, in antebellum Missouri and preaching against abolition, Smith and his cronies announced that there had been a third group in heaven during the battle between God and Lucifer. This group had made the mistake of trying to remain neutral but, following Lucifer’s defeat, had been forced into the world and compelled to “take bodies in the accursed lineage of Canaan; and hence the negro or African race.” Until 1978, no black American was permitted to hold even the lowly position of deacon in the Mormon Church, and nor were any (not that there were many applicants) admitted to the sacred rites of the temple. The Mormon elders then had a “revelation” and changed the rules, thus more or less belatedly coming into compliance with the dominant civil rights statutes. Why Romney needs to talk about his faith. Christopher Hitchens, Nov. 26, 2007 Slate

Romney had surely anticipated that THE QUESTION would be asked yesterday morning and he was prepared. Finally, Russert laid it down:

MR. RUSSERT: You, you raise the issue of color of skin. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown vs. Board of Education, desegregated all our public schools. In 1964 civil rights laws giving full equality to black Americans. And yet it wasn’t till 1978 that the Mormon church decided to allow blacks to participate fully. Here was the headlines in the papers in June of ‘78. “Mormon Church Dissolves Black Bias. Citing new revelation from God, the president of the Mormon Church decreed for the first time black males could fully participate in church rites.” You were 31 years old, and your church was excluding blacks from full participation. Didn’t you think, “What am I doing part of an organization that is viewed by many as a racist organization?”

GOV. ROMNEY: I’m very proud of my faith, and it’s the faith of my fathers, and I certainly believe that it is a, a faith–well, it’s true and I love my faith. And I’m not going to distance myself in any way from my faith. But you can see what I believed and what my family believed by looking at, at our lives. My dad marched with Martin Luther King. My mm was a tireless crusader for civil rights. You may recall that my dad walked out of the Republican convention in 1964 in San Francisco in part because Barry Goldwater, in his speech, gave my dad the impression that he was someone who was going to be weak on civil rights. So my dad’s reputation, my mom’s and my own has always been one of reaching out to people and not discriminating based upon race or anything else. And so those are my fundamental core beliefs, and I was anxious to see a change in, in my church.

I can remember when, when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from, I think, it was law school, but I was driving home, going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio, and I pulled over and, and literally wept. Even at this day it’s emotional, and so it’s very deep and fundamental in my, in my life and my most core beliefs that all people are children of God. My faith has always told me that. My faith has also always told me that, in the eyes of God, every individual was, was merited the, the fullest degree of happiness in the hereafter, and I, and I had no question in my mind that African-Americans and, and blacks generally, would have every right and every benefit in the hereafter that anyone else had and that God is no respecter of persons.

MR. RUSSERT: But it was wrong for your faith to exclude it for as long as it did.

GOV. ROMNEY: I’ve told you exactly where I stand. My view is that there–there’s, there’s no discrimination in the eyes of God, and I could not have been more pleased than to see the change that occurred. Meet the Press Transcript

Well no, Governor Romney, you have not. You have not told us where you stand and if you believe it was wrong for the Church of Latter Day Saints to exclude black people from positions of leadership in the Mormon hierarchy. I was completely unmoved as I watched misty-eyed Mitt fuzzily recounting his reaction to hearing that Mormon church elders had had a revelation that they should now allow African Americans to serve. And funny thing about Romney’s recollection though. Romney graduated from law school THREE YEARS PRIOR TO 1978 in 1975. I don’t know about you, but I remember a great deal about the seminal, emotionally charged moments of my life.

I know many religious people will push back at me here. You will tell me that Mitt Romney faces a monumental dilemma and that Romney cannot state that he thought the practice of excluding blacks was wrong without betraying his religion. You will tell me that it’s an intractable dilemma of the Mormon church: if a church says it is led by revelation, and then says it was wrong, is that saying God was wrong?

And it is this kind of dilemma that true separation of church and state would avoid. But in Romney’s case, what if the elders have a new revelation next week? What if the vision is that blacks once again bear the stain of Cain and must again be excluded from leadership in the church? You think that kind of reversal is preposterous? No, it is not. Bear in mind that the prophet Joseph Smith (although anti-abolitionist) blessed an African American priest.

…although Joseph Smith never spoke or wrote about African Americans and the priesthood, he did ordain an African American to the office of elder. Elijah Abel was born a free man (2a) and baptized in Maryland, in 1832, just two years after the organization of the Church. He moved to Kirtland, Ohio to join the Saints and was there ordained to the office of elder in 1836. Six months later he was called to serve in the third quorum of the seventy and received a patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith, Sr. who seems to have been quite aware of Abel’s unique status as an African American, for instead of declaring his lineage from one of the tribes of Israel, he was declared “an orphan,” but promised equality with his brethren in the eternities. Elder Abel served his first mission for the Church to New York and Canada. In 1836, he moved from Kirtland to Nauvoo where he participated in the temple ordinance of baptism for the dead. It is interesting to speculate as to whether or not he would have received his endowment if he had remained in Nauvoo. In 1842, he moved again from Nauvoo to Cincinnati where he married Mary Ann Adams. (3) In 1843, a traveling high council visited Cincinnati but refused to recognized Elder Abel for the sake of public appearance and called him to his second mission to the “coloured population” of Cincinnati, marking the first time an African American was restricted in his Church activities because of his color. The Lives of African American Mormons and the Evolution of Church Policy, Erin Elizabeth Howarth, Brigham Young University

It was President Brigham Young who authored the priesthood restriction, citing no revelation.

President Young remained very strict in his interpretation. He believed the curse included not only priesthood restriction but also black skin and perpetual servitude. He believed the curse could only be removed by God and that the Civil War effort to free the slaves was in vain. He believed that the Civil War would destroy the United States and spread to every nation, until the Saints could return to Missouri and build a temple in Jackson County. The slaves could only be freed by a decree from God by revelation to the prophet accompanied by the removal of the mark of Cain. It was not expected before the millennium.

The first statement linking priesthood denial with the curse of Cain was given by Brigham Young in response to the question, “What chance is there for the redemption of the Negro?” Young responded, “The Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood.” (6)

President Young never cited Joseph Smith for the source of his doctrine but stated it in his own authority as a prophet, even in the name of Jesus Christ on a least one occasion. In 1852, while addressing the state legislature, Young stated: “Any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain]…in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spoke it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it.” (7) He did not say that it was revealed to him but that it was known. He may have meant the same thing, or he may have been relying on his own feelings. The concept of equality among the races had not yet been born in the United States, but it soon would be. The Lives of African American Mormons and the Evolution of Church Policy, Erin Elizabeth Howarth, Brigham Young University

So you see, it is not always a revelation but on this occasion a declaration that relegated blacks to inferior status. Governor Romney, was that wrong?

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